Tenten
by HyperBatTheGreat
Summary: No one really expects to get born again. That's no surprise. However, She was really not expecting to be reborn into the Naruto Universe. As Tenten, no less. World watch out! Konoha's number 1 marksman is a woman with a mission! To save as many people as she can!
1. Chapter 1

To be honest, I've always thought that one quote, above all others, is quite interesting. I'm nearly sure that almost everyone's heard it.

"To die would be an awfully big adventure."

It's from Peter Pan, and it was interesting because I was depressed, and I read. A lot. I had read so many great stories, many of them were the beautiful pieces of literature known as fanfiction. I always loved reading self insert oc's. They were my way to escape the darkness that I felt. In the end, it was unhealthy. So many of them had died and been reincarnated into these beautiful worlds that I longed for.

One can see how such an occurrence could get warped in the mind of someone going through depression.

My thoughts would drift from killing myself and getting re-born. I never did though. I suppose I believed that if I threw away my first chance to live, I wouldn't exactly be entitled to another. Even beyond that, I didn't want to set an example. Even when I thought about writing those stories, someone kills themselves to escape the world around them and wakes up in a better one, I decided that there was no way to do that.

Despite what I wanted for myself, I wouldn't have wished that course of action on anyone else. I would never write something that might drive someone to suicide.

I still believe that had I killed myself then, I wouldn't have been reborn. Maybe I would have gone to heaven for my christianity. Maybe I would have gone to hell. In fact, my running theory is that only those who die the deaths of young heroes truly move on to another life.

They would have to be young, full of lost potential to make the world a better place. It would have to be a heroes death, where they were saving other people, to prove that they put the needs of others above themselves.

I wasn't really depressed when I died. Sure, there were days where I nearly couldn't get out of bed, but it was rare. I was trying to enjoy life. I had made plenty of friends, and I was dedicated to trying to help them become better people. I was using my experiences with depression to coax others out of theirs. I used how socially awkward I was to reach out to the other social outcasts.

My anxiety still acted up all the time, but it was light. It rarely led to damage to myself or others. There was still a bit of self loathing there, but it was sort of in the background. I was able to push it into my subconscious.

But here, let me get to the point.

* * *

My heart pounds in my chest, my skin feeling like a thousand beetles with needles for legs were skittering around over it. My eyes were trained against the door, my hearing sharpened by adrenaline. Margret was breathing heavily behind me, trying her hardest not to sob. Jacob was positioned next to me, though I made sure I was standing slightly in front of him. I was in the front, backpack resting heavily behind me, one of its straps in my hand.

I had widened my stance, counting my breaths, Three in, three out. My arms tensed, as I ran through the action again and again in my head. If someone came through that door, I would fling my thirty pound backpack at them and sprint forward. First priority was to get the gun out of their hands, then try and crush the throat. I knew as soon as I took off, bullets would fire. If I was lucky none of them would hit the people behind me. If I was _really_ lucky, none of them would hit me. I wasn't banking on the later.

Gunshots rang throughout the school hallway.

They were louder than the ones previously.

I shut my eyes momentarily and took another deep breath.

Footsteps grew closer in the hall.

My heart jumped into my throat

The door thudded.

My eyes snapped open.

The door thudded again.

I clenched my jaw, maneuvering in front of Felicity and Alexander.

My friends wouldn't get hurt.

They wouldn't die.

Not today.

A gunshot rang and the door burst open. I was already moving, my backpack flying out of my hands at the attacker as I processed. The weapon was definitely automatic, so I didn't have much time. Luckily, my feet had moved during my processing. I had already flung myself at him. He recovered in time to get a few shots off, but I took up most of his vision at that point. I felt the pressure of them entering my body, but adrenaline numbed me. Someone was screaming behind me. In my motions, I tried to wrench the gun out of his hands, but it didn't work. He was too strong. Without thinking, I latch my mouth onto his hand, biting down hard enough that blood spilled into my mouth. The gun dropped from his hands and I kicked it backwards as my vision dimmed.

I dropped like a rock to the floor, my thoughts growing more and more sluggish. I knew it was due to blood loss. Most of the shots had been to my chest. Unless paramedics got here now, there really was no hope for me.

Gunshots rang out in the room, and a face appeared over mine. I felt hands trying in vain to stop the blood pouring out of my body.

I smiled and patted Alexander on the cheek. I didn't try to move at all, or speak. I didn't want them to panic even more at the sight of my bloody mouth. I hated having things on my teeth, too. Instead I moved my lifted hand and signed a quick L-O-V-E at the group. Margret was clinging onto my arm, her sobs having finally escaped. Mia was pacing about the room, on the phone in tears. My teacher was still frozen in the corner of the room, just staring straight ahead.

Alexander was frantically trying to save my life, and I felt myself warm. It was touching to know that at least I'd be missed. I had always wondered before, in the dark parts of my life, but now I knew. The world might go on without me, but it would never be the same as it was.

My eyes closed and I felt myself slip away.


	2. Chapter 2

Red eyes stared out at me from equally red fog, glaring at me with an intensity that sucked the breath from my lungs. The eyes flickered to the left, slitted pupils narrowing as though they had acquired a new target, I followed the gaze and found an image of my family, hovering in it's picture frame. I hacked up air. The smoke started to swirl around me, entering my throat like a snake, and the more of it I inhaled, the more warped the picture became. My old family joined with my new one. Alexander appeared with an outstretched hand, standing in front of my old classmates. Suddenly it seemed as though someone had taken a knife to it. Scraped lines appeared all over it. My baby sister's neck got a line through it, a hole was ripped through my new mother's eye. The picture bled.

I turn to see a door has appeared, black in color. Someone's knocking on it, the knocking becoming more frantic and suddenly-

I snap upright in my small bed, tears streaming down my face, and my kaa-chan racing towards me in the room. Loud sounds echo from outside my window like bombs going off. Kaa-chan yanks me off of my bed, curling me in her arms before leaping out the window, breaking the glass as she lunges. She hits the ground, sending a puff of dust up around her. Tou-chan is waiting for her on the grass, a small pack on his back. Without even a word of acknowledgement between the two, or a moment of hesitation, the both start sprinting away from the explosions.

I can't help but look over Kaa-chan's shoulder, the incessant need to see what we were running from had over taken every part of my mind. I glance over, some brown hair falling out of my face.

A shadow looms in the center of the village, stomping and wreaking havoc, nine tails waving about in the air behind it. The creature takes up the entire horizon, eclipsing the sun. It's giant head whips about revealing glowing red eyes. _The eyes from my dream_. I immediately avert my eyes, looking at the road instead. I wish I hadn't. Destruction is everywhere, and even though the battle hasn't been going on for long, the roads are already crowded with bodies. Houses have been ripped through, and I can see the bodies and faces of the projectiles that destroyed them, We're miles away from the fight, and even here, we're surrounded by death.

"Cover her eyes, Miyuki!" Tou-chan screams, and Kaa-chan's hand immediately cover my eyes, somewhere I realize that I'm screaming.

A voice suddenly sounds from next to us, "Hand the kid to me, I'll get her out faster," it's young and boyish and I scream louder. _Not a kid… tell me it's not a kid._

"I'm trusting you Shinobi-san, I'm trusting you!" My mother shouts. I feel myself changing hands, presumably into the ninja's hands. In the few moments I have with my eyes uncovered, I see his face. His eyes are red, but not like the eyes of the monster, his have little black commas in them, and his hair is messy. He looks only about ten or eleven. He covers my eyes as well.

"I will, I promise."

Air screeches past me, suddenly, as though I'm on some sort of motorcycle. Just as fast as we started, we stop. I'm placed on the ground, surrounded by other children. Some are completely silent, just staring out into the distance, others are screaming like I am. Adults rush through the crowd, calming who they can, and checking for injuries. I look back at the village and my screams fade out. Not because I'm calm, but because I can no longer breath. My sobs are silent as my chest heaves, trying with all it's might to just _breathe, dammit breath!_ I can't see anymore, my vision blurred from tears, I can't function. I just want to sleep.

After a few moments, my vision dims as I run out of oxygen.

I hesitantly open my eyes, heart still pounding in my chest. The clouds float by, slightly dimmed by smoke. I can taste it in the air. It smells nauseatingly sweet, putrid, steaky. It smelled so thick I could nearly taste it. I turn on my side and vomit, the taste of bile a relief from the taste of burnt human. I keep throwing up, choking on my own vomit a few times. I scoot away quietly from the acidic substance on the ground. I can't be sure, but I remember hearing something in my past life that said that it's not wise to sit surrounded by your own bodily fluids, regardless of what kind.

I'm lost. My home has probably been destroyed, my parents might be dead, and I'm sitting, surrounded by the smell of cooked human flesh. The monster from my dream was both real, and hauntingly familiar.

Unable to come up with something else to occupy myself with, I settle for thinking about the creature, in a vain attempt to try and figure out why it's familiar. I can only remember so much. Images are snapshots glued into my mind, but they're just that, snapshots. Pictures of dead bodies, destroyed houses, and the hand of a small child that I don't even remember seeing. There's images of the creature too, silhouetted by the early morning sun, nine tails waving behind it. It's mouth open in a terrifying roar. I can feel myself shaking, tears once again rolling down my face. I grit my teeth, determined to figure out why that… thing… was so familiar.

.

..

…

 _No… It couldn't be._ More vomit joins the puddle on the ground. The sounds of explosions still echo in the distance, and I stare at the trees between me and Konohagakure, a sick realization dawning on me. I wasn't just reborn, I was reborn in the Narutoverse. I was reborn into Tenten's body. The manga never said whether or not she had parents. _Ohgodohgodohgod_

Were they okay? Did they make it out in time? I can't be the only one, right? I'm not and orphan, right? I should go see. But what if I die there? What if they're dead there. Would their deaths be in vain if I followed? What-

My feet are already making their way to the forest between me and the village. I'm full on running now, desperately trying to make it. _I'll find them, I will. They'll be okay. They have to be._ An arm scoops me up from behind yanking me off the ground. I scream. "No! No! You have to let me go! I need to find them! They can't leave me!"

"Jeez kid!" the owner of the arm shouts, trying to hold me away from him so I'd stop kicking at him. He marches back to where the other children are and throws me into the arms of someone else. "Hold on to her," he orders before turning and disappearing ( _shunshin_ my mind supplies.)

"W-wait!" The voice is that of another child, once again, maybe nine or ten years old. He clutched onto me tightly, like a lifeline. "What… What am I supposed to… What am I supposed to do?" He trailed off. I felt bad for him, but not nearly enough to stop struggling.

My screaming continued for another half hour, before I finally got too tired to continue. I fell asleep in the boy's arms, not having enough energy to try and lay down elsewhere.

Fire red burns through my eyelids and I wake up with a scream, already seeing the red smoke, and smelling the burning flesh. There are no explosions anymore, and my adrenaline has finally died down. I can't fight anymore, I don't have the energy. All I can do is cry. I shake with sobs burying my face into the nearest available surface, which happens to be the shirt of the boy holding me.

He squeaks, and presumably panics, because his arms flitter around me for a moment before he awkwardly pats my back. "There there…" his voice is weak in a way I know mine would be too if I actually had the energy to speak. I look up at his face. His eyes are puffy and red. His crying isn't just a thing of the past either. His eyes are still wet, and I watch one drip off his chin. _He's just a kid…_ Without thinking about it, I fling myself on him, wrapping my arms around him in a hug. I guess it was the right thing because he immediately starts sobbing into my shoulder. _What kind of fucked up world is this? Where two children are left on their own after possibly losing their parents?_ I feel anger boil up inside me, but I shove it down. The person I need to focus on right now is the boy in front of me.

I let him keep crying into my shirt until he has no tears left to cry, and the sun's gone down. I remove my face from his shirt, and wiggle until I'm sitting next to him. I clutch at his arm and wedge myself into his side. He gives a humorless laugh that breaks my heart.

"My name's Tenten, what's yours?" I ask, still staring at the trees. I don't try to make my voice friendly. Both the boy and I would know how fake it was.

"Iruka Umino," He answers, staring out into the woods as well. I start slightly, but ignore it. I don't care much about who he is right now. I just know that neither of us should be alone.

A few days pass after the attack, and all the children are kept together. Every half hour or so, a set of parents will enter the area to claim their child. Every couple of minutes, a ninja enters with a black scroll and bad news for someone. On the third day, Iruka's comes.

A ninja approaches our little corner of the camp, "Iruka Umino?" he asks, looking right at Iruka.

I already knew that Iruka's parents didn't make it, but he didn't. His voice wavers, "That's me."

The ninja wordlessly holds out two black scrolls, and Iruka hesitantly grabs it. I glance at his face. He's stone cold, emotions utterly repressed.

"I'll take you over to the orphanage section." The ninja speaks tonelessly.

My anger breaks, and I surge in front of Iruka, "Like hell you will," I snarl.

I'm sure it looked amusing from the outside, a ten-year-old boy staring at his hands while a two-year-old girl defends him from a trained ninja, but no one was laughing.

The ninja looks down at me, clearly exhausted, but with sorrow on his face. "Kid, I don't make the rules."

"Then let me spell it out for you," I stand, arms outstretched, in front of Iruka, "My name is Tenten Tanaka, and either my parents are coming to get me, or they're dead," I spit out harshly, "If they're alive, we'll take care of him, if they're dead, you can have fun taking both of us over there, but right now, you have two children where the only person they know and have the most base ability to rely on is their fellow child. In short, the only thing keeping us sane right now is the fact that we have each other, so if you wouldn't mind fucking right off so you don't destroy our mental states more than you might have already, that would be nice."

The ninja stares at me in surprise before glaring and shunshinning away.

I turn and look at Iruka for a second. he's still staring at the scrolls in his hands. I fling myself at him, arms wrapped around him in a hug. "It's okay to cry…" I murmur. Iruka bursts out sobbing, still clutching the scrolls close to his chest, his face buried in my shoulder once again.

It was the fifth day when the metaphorical dawn broke. My hair buns had fallen apart by day four of waiting, and Iruka was practically comatose. The most he would do was lay on the grass and stare at the finally visible clouds. I would put his head in my lap and run my hands through his hair, hoping that it helped just a little. Our clothes were dirty, I had a scrape on my face from shoving a kid away from Iruka. I guess even in a tragedy, some people still had time to make others feel like shit.

Iruka's head was in my lap, as per usual when I saw two pairs of ninja sandals appear in front of me. I followed them up to find two familiar faces. Tou-chan and Kaa-chan were alive. Iruka's asleep, and I'm not about to wake him just to tell him that my parents are still alive. It would feel cruel to rub it in, after all he'd been through. Instead, I gently lifted his head off my lap and stood up. Tou-chan and Kaa-chan both dropped to their knees, arms outstretched and I launched into them. Tou-chan held me close to his chest as Kaa-chan buries her face in my hair. I sit quietly, my eyes closed. After the tornado of the initial kyuubi attack and it's pained aftermath, my parent's arms were a tranquil forest.

A small grunt sounded behind me, along with a slight hitch of breath. I'm already starting to remove myself from my parent's arms when someone screams.

"Nonononono, where is she? Oh god what happened?!" Iruka's voice shakes with fear.

I rip myself from my parent's arms and turn around. It only takes a few seconds to take stock of the situation. Iruka's eyes flicker around, utterly panicked. I can hear his breath rasping in and out far too quickly. I grab his arm with one hand and turn his face to meet mine with the other. I wait just long enough for him to recognize it's me before I wrap my arms around him. "I'm here, I'm fine!" he buries his face in my shoulder, and I pat his back, trying to comfort him, "My parents came," I tell him, "do you want to come with us?"

Iruka says nothing, simply nodding slightly, and I understand. He doesn't want to be alone. I can't help but recall what I remember from my past life, he may have been the cause for his parent's death, so really it's no surprise that he'd need emotional support. I know that my new parents would be happy to give it, and I'll be with him as well.

I glance back. In interest, sorrow, and pride my parents look at us. I smile.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

First things first, I'm sorry it took me so long to update, but I really wrote myself into a corner, and I couldn't be sure where to go


End file.
